#anti hodge baker

[romanceclub-confessionss]

Confession:

"everyone saying amen is the worst li/ ian is the worst lis are wrong. the real reddest flags lis are Brian "no, don't go to therapy you're too sexy" Baker, and his even worst brother Hodge "let's put this already traumatized girl into even further trauma  by getting her involved with my criminal empire" Baker. I said what I said"

[batmannotes]

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two   

Available on Digital on April 23

4K UHD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-ray also arriving on April 23

Based on DC’s iconic comic book limited series ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, join DC Super Heroes from across the multiverse in the second of three parts in DC’s new animated film Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two, which continues the trilogy that marks the beginning of the end to the Tomorrowverse story arc.

Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, the all-new, action-packed DC animated film features some of DC’s most famous Super Heroes from multiple universes including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, who come together to stop an impending threat of doom and destruction. Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two will be available to purchase on digital and on 4K UHD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-ray on April 23.

Fans of this superhero adventure will also be able to indulge in a range of bonus features including interviews with the filmmakers on how they created a comprehensive universe across seven films.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One is available now on Digital, 4K UHD and Blu-ray.The final part of the trilogywill be available later in 2024.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two features returning popular voice cast members: Jensen Ackles (Supernatural, The Boys, The Winchesters) as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Emmy winner Darren Criss (The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Glee) as Superman & Earth-2 Superman, Meg Donnelly (Legion of Super-Heroes, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,) as Supergirl & Harbinger, and Stana Katic (Castle, Absentia) as Wonder Woman & Superwoman.

Aside from the returning voice cast, the star-studded ensemble voice cast includes Jonathan Adams as Monitor, Gideon Adlon as Batgirl, Geoffrey Arend as Psycho Pirate/Charles Halstead & Hawkman, Troy Baker as Joker, Zach Callison as Robin, Darin De Paul as Solovar, Ato Essandoh as Mr. Terrific & Anti-Monitor, Keith Ferguson as Dr. Fate & Atomic Knight, Will Friedle as Batman Beyond & Kamandi, Jennifer Hale as Alura & Hippolyta, Aldis Hodge as John Stewart, Jamie Gray Hyder as Hawkgirl, Erika Ishii as Doctor Light/Dr. Hoshi & Huntress, David Kaye as The Question & Satellite, Matt Lanter as Blue Beetle, Liam McIntyre as Aquaman, Lou Diamond Phillips as Spectre, Matt Ryan as Constantine, Keesha Sharp as Vixen, Harry Shum Jr. as Brainiac 5, and Jimmi Simpson as Green Arrow.

Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two is produced by Jim Krieg and Kimberly S. Moreau and executive produced by Butch Lukic, Sam Register, and Michael Uslan. The film is directed by Jeff Wamester from a script by Jim Krieg. Casting and voice direction is by Wes Gleason. The film is based on characters from DC and the graphic novel “Crisis on Infinite Earths” by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez

Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two will be available on April 3 9 to purchase digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more. On April 30 23 the film will be available to purchase on 4K Ultra HD in limited edition steelbook packaging and Blu-Ray Discs online and in-store at major retailers. Pre-order your copy now.

SYNOPSIS:

An endless army of SHADOW DEMONS bent on the destruction of all reality swarms over our world and all parallel Earths! The only thing opposing them is the mightiest team of metahumans ever assembled. But not even the combined power of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and all their fellow superheroes can slow down the onslaught of this invincible horde. What mysterious force is driving them? And how do the long-buried secrets of the Monitor and Supergirl threaten to crush our last defense?

SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE:

Physical and Digital

Voices in Crisis

The Bat-Family of the Multiverse

Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three Sneak Peek

Preorder now at Amazon.

[viktoriiayanovska2]

Legalization of gay marriage

In recent years, significant strides have been made in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, particularly in the legalization of gay marriage. This post explores the journey toward marriage equality, highlighting key milestones, challenges, and the broader impact on society.

The path to LGBTQ+ rights has been marked by resilience and triumphs, with pivotal moments like the Stonewall riots shaping the trajectory of progress. Systemic discrimination, from the secrecy of the early 20th century to open discrimination in the mid-century, has been a historical challenge. Legal battles, such as the fight against "sodomy laws," have been constant companions in the struggle for equality. The Stonewall riots of 1969 served as a turning point, sparking a wave of activism and the emergence of the gay rights movement, advocating for decriminalization, anti-discrimination laws, and societal acceptance. The impact on legislation has been significant, with the activism contributing to the dismantling of discriminatory laws globally. Landmark moments, like the removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973, reflect the progress made. The global spread of LGBTQ+ activism has extended beyond borders, inspiring decriminalization efforts and the establishment of rights organizations worldwide. Reflecting on historical struggles, from Stonewall to the emergence of the gay rights movement, highlights the hard-fought progress.

The legal landscape for LGBTQ+ rights in the United States has seen significant evolution, with landmark cases shaping history. The journey toward the recognition of gay marriage faced early setbacks, such as Baker v. Nelson in 1972 and Baehr v. Lewin in Hawaii in 1993. The enactment of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 further entrenched discrimination, defining marriage as between one man and one woman for federal purposes. Over subsequent decades, cases like Lawrence v. Texas (2003) and United States v. Windsor (2013) challenged anti-sodomy laws and struck down key DOMA provisions, contributing to a shift in public opinion. The legal journey toward recognizing gay marriage in the United States has been one of resilience and progress, epitomized by the monumental victory in Obergefell v. Hodges. As we celebrate strides made, acknowledging ongoing challenges is crucial, emphasizing the commitment to fostering a legal landscape that upholds justice and equality for all, irrespective of sexual orientation.

The pursuit of marriage equality transcends borders, encompassing diverse cultural, legal, and societal landscapes globally. This exploration delves into global perspectives on gay marriage, emphasizing progress in various regions and shedding light on ongoing challenges faced by LGBTQ+ individuals.

Western Progress and Legalization: Several Western countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, and various European nations, have made significant strides in recognizing and legalizing same-sex marriage. These nations acknowledge the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals to marry and enjoy associated legal and societal benefits.

Latin America: A Region in Transition: Latin America is experiencing a notable shift toward LGBTQ+ rights acceptance, with countries like Argentina, Uruguay, and Mexico legalizing same-sex marriage. However, cultural and religious influences contribute to ongoing debates and resistance in the region.

Asia: Diverse Approaches and Challenges: Asia presents a diverse LGBTQ+ rights landscape. While Taiwan has made historic strides in legalizing same-sex marriage, many Middle Eastern nations maintain restrictive stances influenced by cultural and religious factors, leading to persecution and legal consequences for LGBTQ+ individuals.

Africa: Complex Socio-cultural Realities: In Africa, socio-cultural factors strongly influence perspectives on LGBTQ+ issues. Several countries criminalize homosexuality, making progress toward marriage equality challenging. South Africa stands out as an exception, having legalized same-sex marriage and established constitutional protections for LGBTQ+ rights.

Ongoing Challenges: Despite progress, challenges persist in regions where legal recognition of same-sex relationships remains distant, resulting in discrimination, violence, and legal consequences for LGBTQ+ individuals. Cultural and religious conservatism often hinders legislative changes, contributing to a complex global landscape for marriage equality.

International Advocacy and Human Rights: International organizations and human rights advocates play a crucial role in promoting LGBTQ+ rights globally. Efforts to raise awareness, challenge discriminatory laws, and foster dialogue contribute to the ongoing global conversation on marriage equality.

Impact on Society and Cultural Shifts: The acceptance of LGBTQ+ rights, including marriage equality, aligns with broader societal shifts. Positive portrayals in media, education, and advocacy work contribute to changing attitudes and fostering a more inclusive and accepting global society.

Examining global perspectives on marriage equality reveals uneven progress shaped by cultural, religious, and legal factors. While some regions celebrate victories, others face ongoing challenges. The global conversation on LGBTQ+ rights and marriage equality must persist, with international cooperation and advocacy playing pivotal roles in fostering a world where love knows no borders, and all individuals enjoy equal rights and recognition, regardless of sexual orientation. The legalization of gay marriage is a landmark moment in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, reshaping society in profound ways. This analysis explores the societal changes since the acceptance of same-sex marriage and its contribution to greater acceptance, understanding, and inclusivity.

Breaking Stereotypes and Stigmas: Legalizing gay marriage immediately challenges harmful stereotypes and stigmas associated with LGBTQ+ individuals, fostering a more nuanced understanding of diverse relationships. Normalization of LGBTQ+ Identities: The legal recognition of gay marriage normalizes LGBTQ+ identities, integrating same-sex couples into the broader societal narrative, fostering empathy and understanding, and contributing to a more inclusive societal fabric. Fostering Empathy and Understanding: Public discourse around legalizing gay marriage sparks conversations about love, commitment, and equality, increasing societal awareness of the unique challenges faced by LGBTQ+ individuals and breaking down historical barriers to discrimination and prejudice. Celebrating Diversity in Families: Legal recognition of gay marriage expands the definition of family, acknowledging same-sex couples as legitimate family units, challenging traditional norms, and breaking down societal expectations regarding family structures. Inclusive Legal and Social Policies: The legalization of gay marriage paves the way for inclusive legal and social policies, including anti-discrimination measures, spousal benefits, and improved healthcare access for LGBTQ+ families, contributing to a more just and inclusive society. Positive Mental Health Impacts: Studies indicate that legalizing gay marriage is associated with positive mental health outcomes for LGBTQ+ individuals, fostering a sense of belonging and societal acceptance, and reducing historical mental health disparities. Impact on Younger Generations: Acceptance of gay marriage has a profound impact on younger generations, fostering more tolerant, open-minded, and accepting attitudes among future leaders and influencers. Challenges and Ongoing Work: While significant progress has been made, challenges persist, particularly for intersectional communities within the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Ongoing advocacy and education are crucial to address these challenges and ensure the continued positive impacts of legalizing gay marriage on society. The legalization of gay marriage has ushered in transformative changes, fostering greater acceptance, understanding, and inclusivity. By challenging stereotypes, fostering empathy, and reshaping policies, this milestone has played a pivotal role in building a more equitable and diverse world. As we celebrate these achievements, continued commitment to efforts promoting the well-being and equality of all individuals, regardless of sexual orientation, is essential.

Acknowledging challenges beyond marriage equality underscores the need for continuous advocacy. By actively working to overcome these obstacles, we move closer to a more inclusive and equitable future for the LGBTQ+ community. The journey toward legalizing gay marriage has been a pivotal chapter in LGBTQ+ rights, reshaping historical, legal, global, and societal dimensions. While transformative strides have been made, the pursuit of full equality is ongoing. Historical tenacity and global diversity in approaches highlight the need for international collaboration. The impact on society is evident, breaking down stereotypes and fostering empathy, but ongoing challenges persist in workplace discrimination, healthcare, and the experiences of marginalized identities. To advocate for an inclusive world, staying informed about the journey is crucial. The call to action is clear: the pursuit of full equality must continue. By amplifying diverse voices, challenging discrimination, and advocating for comprehensive legal protections, we contribute to a future free from prejudice. In this ongoing journey, each step forward is a testament to the resilience and determination of the LGBTQ+ community and its allies.

References:

[lenbryant]

LONG POST-Robin Abcarian writes about the religious fan fiction that won the Supreme Court case for the Alliance Defending Mustache Man. (Because lying is no longer a sin, it doesn't count that the facts were just made up.)

(LATimes) Column: How the ripple effect of the Supreme Court’s 303 Creative decision could swamp civil rights

By Robin Abcarian, Columnist July 12, 2023

Now that the legal door has been opened to anti-LGBTQ+ bigots or racists, there’s just no telling how far the Supreme Court’s license to discriminate will go.

Last month, the court’s conservative majority ruled that a website designer in Colorado would not violate the state’s antidiscrimination law if she refused to create wedding websites for gay couples.

Mind you, Lorie Smith, the proprietor of 303 Creative, was not actually creating wedding websites at that point, but she wanted to know in advance whether it would be OK to turn away gay people because she abhors same-sex marriage.

Smith is represented by the right-wing Christian legal juggernaut Alliance Defending Freedom, which is hellbent on reversing LGBTQ+ rights.

To Smith, her lawyers attested, same-sex marriage “is not only problematic because it violates God’s will, but also because it harms society and children because marriage between one man and one woman is a fundamental building block of society and the ideal arrangement for the rearing of children.”

In telling their client’s story, the ADF laid it on thick: “Lorie believes that our culture’s movement away from God’s design for marriage is particularly pronounced in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which held that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”

I thought it was bizarre to be able to bring a lawsuit with imaginary facts, but as Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky explained to me, federal law allows for such a thing, especially if the situation seems likely to arise eventually.

“No one should have to eat a mushroom in order to know if it’s poisonous or not,” Chemerinsky said. “She says, ‘I am not going to set up this business if I have to serve same-sex couples, so let me know in advance.’ ” Fair enough.

As for reports that Smith made up the gay couple she claimed had contacted her for wedding website services (even though she hadn’t launched that business yet, hmmmm), Chemerinsky said it no longer matters whether they existed or not.

“Once the court decides,” he said, “you can’t challenge the case.”

It will come as no surprise that the Alliance Defending Freedom also represented the Colorado baker who won a limited Supreme Court victory in 2018 after he refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. Later — and I tell you this to demonstrate that fears about the repercussions of Supreme Court-sanctioned discrimination are not far-fetched — the same baker, Jack Phillips, found himself back in court after refusing to make a cake celebrating a gender transition.

What he can and can’t refuse to do remains contentious: The state appeals court found that Phillips violated Colorado’s antidiscrimination law.

How so? Because the customer, Autumn Scardina, had simply ordered a pink cake with blue frosting. That design, said the court, had no message or imagery that could be construed as violating the baker’s rights.

Of course, the ADF has appealed the ruling to the Colorado Supreme Court.

But back to the 303 Creative decision.

In this case, the Supreme Court said, essentially, “Why, yes, of course, Ms. Smith, if same-sex marriage goes against your beliefs, then by all means you may refuse service.” The court’s opinion did not turn on the fact that her beliefs arise from her religion (although they do), but that her freedom of expression — her 1st Amendment rights — would be violated if Colorado forced her to create websites for same-sex couples, or fined her for not doing so.

Making a wedding website may indeed involve the maker’s creative expression. But what else falls into that category?

“In the wedding context,” said Chemerinsky, “it could be designing a cake, floral arrangements, stationery. In other contexts, it could be a cabinet maker — all of it is open.”

There really is no stopping point.

“Doubtless, determining what qualifies as expressive activity protected by the First Amendment can sometimes raise difficult questions,” opined Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who may not be able to define expressive activity, but will undoubtedly know it when he sees it.

The ACLU, staunch defender of the 1st Amendment, said the court got it all wrong. The case was not about free expression but about

discrimination.

“Properly framed,” ACLU attorneys wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief, “the question presented is whether an artist who has chosen to open a business to the public at large, can constitutionally be prohibited … from discriminating against customers on the basis of a protected characteristic.” In Colorado’s antidiscrimination law, those characteristics include race, color, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others.

It is too soon to see exactly what ripple effects this unfortunate decision will have. But you can be sure it will be construed in many corners as a license to discriminate based purely on personal beliefs.

As Colorado Atty. Gen. Phil Weiser put it after the decision came down, “A business may think that it can refuse to serve interracial couples because it believes interracial marriage is wrong. A payroll company may … refuse service to women-owned businesses because the business owner believes women should not work outside the home. A bookseller of religious texts may believe it can refuse to sell books to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints because he doesn’t believe it to be a legitimate religion.”

Thanks to the Supreme Court, the possibilities for discriminating against those who have traditionally been protected by civil rights laws are endless.

Heckuva job, justices.

@robinkabcarian

[desolationlesbian]

Since we’ve had like actual talk about overturning Obergefell v. Hodges (the same-sex marriage case) in the news lately I wanted to do a post to clarify some things, as someone who has done a lot of reading on the subject/is in law school. okay cool here we go

First thing: The supreme court can’t just overturn anything it wants whenever, even if it has the votes to do so. It can only do that when it has a relevant case in front of it. This means someone, somewhere, has to file a case challenging the Obergefell ruling, and that case has to be non-flimsy enough to drag its ass allllllll the way up the court system to the Supreme Court.

That would be really, really hard! It would be really hard because of a legal concept called “standing.” Standing means that if you want to bring a case against a law, you have to prove you have been harmed by it. You can’t sue to get something overturned just because you don’t like it. For example, I really don’t like the felony murder rule, but since neither I nor anyone with a relation to me has ever been charged or convicted under it, I can’t sue to get it struck down. The case would get dismissed immediately, because I would have no standing.

So in order to have standing to sue to get Obergefell struck down, you need to show that you were harmed by same-sex marriage. Not just that your boss told you, an innocent god-fearing county clerk, to perform one--that might get you an exemption from the court that says you don’t have to perform them, but it wouldn’t make same-sex marriage illegal for people who do want to perform or be in them. No, to get same-sex marriage itself repealed, you would have to show that same-sex marriage itself being legal has harmed you somehow. This is really difficult because it...doesn’t. Gay people getting married just doesn’t harm straight people.

The other way a case might happen, since showing harm is so difficult, is for congress to pass an anti-same-sex marriage law. If they were to pass such a law, lefty advocacy groups representing LGBT people would sue to get it struck down immediately, and now Obergefell is suddenly back in front of the Supreme Court! But a law would need to pass both chambers, and democrats currently control the house. 

So, to summarize: In order to even get equal marriage in front of the court to overturn it again, we would need either 1) straight people to come up with a real, decent argument about how gay people getting married is hurting them (nigh impossible) or 2) Congress to pass an anti-gay marriage bill into law (they can barely pass a budget right now). So...unlikely.

Second thing: Let’s say that one of those things happen and somehow, and Obergefell is overturned. Even if this happens, all those marriages don’t instantly disappear. Multiple states allowed and performed same-sex marriages before Obergefell dropped in 2015, and those states would continue to do so. The federal government would have to recognize those marriages under another Supreme Court case, United States v. Windsor, unless they overturn that too. States might not recognize marriages performed in other states, though. 

Overturning Obergefell wouldn’t ban same-sex marriage nationwide or dissolve any of the marriages that exist---it would revert us back to the law before 2015. Lots of states performing legally recognized marriages, other states being huge babies about it. 

Third thing: Okay, so it’s really, really hard to overturn same-sex marriage. You know what the court can do, really, really easily? Carve out religious exemptions. Lots and lots of religious exemptions. It’s hard to find standing challenging same-sex marriage as a whole, but SUPER easy to find 1000 county clerks, cake bakers, and other religious homophobes to earnestly tell the court how much it tramples their bigoted little souls to treat the gays with respect. The court can find for all of them, over and over again, until they’ve turned the Obergefell ruling into swiss cheese without ever really overturning it. 

Same-sex marriage in these circumstance would absolutely be legal, and recognized by the government! It’s just that the only clerk willing to marry you might not be working that day. And your religious insurance company can decline to recognize your wife on the health plan. And the adoption agency can refuse to even consider giving you a kid.

TLDR: Don’t be that worried about same-sex marriage being overturned. Worry way more about the court leaving it technically intact while gutting it like a fish.

[newyorkprelawland-blog]

It’s Pride Month! A Brief History Of The Advancement And Setbacks Of LGBTQ Rights In The United States

By Jordan Wappler, Fordham University Class of 2022

June 18, 2020

A Supreme Court ruling this June barring workplace discrimination marked another milestone in the progress of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people in the United States. From Executive Orders to local ordinances, laws related to the legal protections and equitable treatment of LGBTQ Americans have seen many changes since the 1950s. Progress, although ultimately significant in many aspects, has been gradual and complicated, with both advances and reversals. With this month marking Pride Month, here is a look at the milestones in this movement.

1953- Executive Order 10450

On April 27, 1953 President Dwight Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450. This order prohibited homosexual people from working in the federal government or any private contractors of the federal government. The rationale behind this order was that homosexual people would be security risks (PBS). Homosexuality at the time was considered to be a sexual perversion, and therefore homosexuals were included as a “sexual perversion” mentioned in section 8aiii of the order.

1958- US Supreme Court Case SuOne, Inc. v. Olesen

January 13, 1958 was the first time the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of homosexuals, protecting their First Amendment constitutional right (PBS). The Supreme Court reversed the lower court decision that the gay magazine One: The Homosexual Magazine by Mattachine Society was obscene (NY Times).

1961- First State Decriminalization of Homosexuality

On July 28 of 1961, Illinois became the first state to end its anti-sodomy law, essentially decriminalizing homosexuality.

1971 & 1972- Minnesota Supreme Court and US Supreme Court, Baker v. Nelson

Two men, Jack Baker and Michael McConnell, requested the United States Supreme Court pronounce that Minnesota’s failure to allow them to marry was a violation of the Constitution (NY Times). The court dismissed the appeal for “want of a substantial federal question” and no oral arguments were held (Constitutional Law Reporter). This was impactful because opponents of same-sex marriage used this ruling to support their future arguments.

1973- Kentucky Court of Appeals, Jones v. Hallahan

Marjorie Jones and Tracy Knight, both women, sued for a marriage license when they were denied by a county clerk. The court ruled against them, concluding that the term marriage was already defined as a union between a man and a woman, and therefore two women were not eligible to enter into a marriage (LexisNexis). 

1977- NY County Supreme Court, Richards v. US Tennis Association

A transgender woman,Renee Richards,was a tennis player who wanted to play in the United States Open but was denied entrance in 1976 based on her gender identity. She won an injunction under New York law and subsequently participated in the 1977 US Open (NY Times).

1982- First State to Outlaw Discrimination based on Sexual Orientation

In 1982, Wisconsin outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation.

1986- US Supreme Court, Bowers v. Hardwick

As the AIDS crisis surged, anti-gay rhetoric and hysteria grew. When a police officer exercising a warrant on an unrelated matter caught Michael Hardwick having sex with another man, he arrested him for not complying with the anti-sodomy statute at the time. On June 30, 1986, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Georgia State’s criminal sodomy law was constitutional (Encyclopedia Brittanica).

1993- “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

On December 21, 1993, the Department of Defense issued a directive that forbid the US Military from excluding applicants from service based on their sexual orientation (PBS). Although homosexual acts or declaration that one was homosexual were still forbidden, applicants were no longer required to reveal their sexuality.

1996- Defense of Marriage Act

September 21, 1996, President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage as a legal union only between a man and woman, and hence not requiring any state to recognize same-sex marriage from out of state (PBS).

1998- Executive Order 13087

President Clinton signed Executive Order 13087on May 28,1998, amending Executive Order 13087 to “provide for a uniform policy for the Federal Government to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation” (GovInfo).

2000- First State to Legalize Civil Unions/Registered Partnerships

On April 26, Vermont legalized civil unions and registered partnerships for same sex couples.

2004- First State to Legalize Gay Marriage

May 18, 2004, Massachusetts court found denying same-sex couples’ marriage to be unconstitutional.

2008- Proposition 8 in California

In November of 2008, California voters approved proposition 8, which made same-sex marriages in the state of California illegal (PBS).

2009- Matthew Shepard Act

On October 28, President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard Act, which expanded 1969 US Federal Hate Crime Law to incorporatecrimes driven by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability (PBS).

2010- Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

On December 18, 2010, Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is repealed by the US Senate, meaning homosexuals can serve openly in the military.

2015- US Supreme Court, Obergefell v. Hodges

On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal in all states.

2018- US Supreme Court, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

The Supreme Court ruled that “showing hostility to religious people in applying nondiscrimination laws violated the First Amendment’s free exercise clause” (NY Times). However, specifics and guidelines around if and when religious people can refuse service to same-sex couples was left ambiguous.

2019- US Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia Circuit, US Supreme Court, Doe v. Trump

In July of 2017, President Trump posted a Tweet proposing to ban transgender people from US military service (FreedomForAllAmericans). The military ban began officially on April 12, 2019 and court ligation against it continues.

2020- Elimination of nondiscrimination healthcare for LGBTQ people

On July 12, 2020 President Trump finalized his new rule that eradicates nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people’s healthcare and health insurance (NPR). This rule pertains to the nondiscrimination protections that were laid out in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, a federal law that made it illegal to discriminate based on race, color, nationality, sex, age or disability. Under Obama in 2016, “sex” included all gender identities (NPR). Lindsey Dawson, associate director of HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation explains that “under the new rule, a transgender person could, for example, be refused care for a checkup at a doctor’s office” (NPR, Lindsey Dawson).

2020- US Supreme Court, Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga. and Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda

By a 6 to 3 vote, the court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender employees from workplace discrimination. The 1964 legislation’s “because of sex” clause was found to apply to LGBTQ workers, expanding the act’s impact to a new class of employee. The court ruling was prompted by two cases. One was brought by two gay men who were fired because of sexual orientation, the other by a transgender woman for embracing her gender identity at work. The ruling sided with plaintiff’s argument that the 1964 legislation, while not specifically mentioning LGBTQ people, afforded protections from termination of employment that were not based on job performance (NY Times).

In addition to the milestones noted above, laws related to the rights of LGBTQ people continue to be shaped at the local and state level. It is likely, in a divided political climate, that further progress and controversy will continue to be a legal focus with both advocates and opponents seeking further changes across a wide spectrum including family law, workplace discrimination and other key civil rights arenas.

 _______________________________________________________________

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/stonewall-milestones-american-gay-rights-movement/

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP87B01034R000100030071-4.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/legal-history-lgbtq-rights-timeline.html

https://constitutionallawreporter.com/2012/12/20/baker-v-nelson-the-often-forgotten-supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-case/

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-jones-v-hallahan#:~:text=Facts%3A,license%20to%20marry%20each%20other.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Bowers-v-Hardwick

https://www.freedomforallamericans.org/doe-v-trump/

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1998-06-02/pdf/98-14689.pdf

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/868073068/transgender-health-protections-reversed-by-trump-administration

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/us/gay-transgender-workers-supreme-court.html

Photo Credit: Ludovic Bertron

[royalpain16]

Meghan Markle, Prince Harry should fully give up royal titles, UK citizens demand

U.K. citizens are up in arms about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's shocking announcement that they will take a backseat from their "senior member" status of the royal family to work independently. But instead of wanting the couple to keep the current structure the same, many are calling on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to relinquish their titles entirely.

Norman Baker, a former Liberal Democrat member of parliament and home office minister in the coalition government, sounded off on the couple's 2020 plans to partially support the queen while simultaneously having financial independence.

"You can't be one foot in, one foot out," Baker said, according to the DailyMail.

"You are either a member of the royal family or you are not," the former minister added.

While the couple shed light on how their new approach will affect their finances moving forward on their official website, taxpayers and parliament members are outraged that their dollars will continue to benefit Harry and Meghan.

"[Prince Harry] should give the money back spent on Frogmore Cottage and pay himself for the jets between the UK and America. And pay for his security," Baker continued (via DailyMail).

The former minister added that it would be sensible for Harry to completely ditch his royal status and "become a private citizen."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex claimed on their website that they will continue to pay for their own private travel, as was already the plan in place. However, Baker stressed that doesn't mean taxpayers will stop paying for the couple's security, which according to gov.uk, is not a subject they can publicly disclose.

"No breakdown of security costs is available as disclosure of such information could compromise the integrity of these arrangements and affect the security of the individuals protected. It is long established policy not to comment upon the protective security arrangements and their related costs for members of the Royal Family or their residences," the UK government site explains.

Harry and Meghan's official website breaks down how this title shift would impact their current U.K. home at Frogmore Cottage. According to the site, the couple plans to still use the Frogmore Cottage while they split their time between the UK and North America.

The cottage was a gift from the queen, but the couple's website states they were on the hook for expenses covering its furnishings, fittings, and fixtures.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex thoroughly explained on their site that they have given up the five percent of the income they receive from the Sovereign Grant. But DailyMail claims it is believed the couple will still pocket the remaining 95 percent of the couple's funding, which is allocated by the Prince of Wales and generated through his estate, the Duchy of Cornwall.

If that is the case, one member of parliament claimed that Harry and Meghan appear to want to "have their cake and eat it," the British outlet reported.

In order to play fair, members of parliament claimed that the new structure is concerning.

"If they want to have financial independence, no one would quibble with that. But the announcement they made was really sketchy," an unnamed member told the outlet.

Shortly after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made their bombshell announcement, Buckingham Palace released a hasty statement implying that Harry and Meghan weren't transparent about their decision.

"Discussions with The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are at an early stage," a Palace spokesman told Fox News late Wednesday. "We understand their desire to take a different approach, but these are complicated issues that will take time to work through."

Labour MP Margaret Hodge told the DailyMail that there is a need for "greater transparency" regarding the royals' finances.

Meanwhile, Graham Smith, chief executive of anti-monarchy group Republic, claimed Harry and Meghan's partial status is a sign their titles should be all or nothing.

"They can't have it both ways - keeping the perks but not wanting to stay and do the work," he told the outlet.

Republic followed up with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's shocking announcement with a tweet.

"#Harrymeghan would have had more sympathy, and our full support, if they had renounced their titles, immediately given up any claim to public funding and said they wanted to live private lives in North America," the group wrote.

Last year, Meghan made headlines after a royal expert called her "extravagant" for her lavish lifestyle. The British public was reportedly shocked to find out that Harry's wife's baby shower was estimated at $379,000 in addition to a $3.8 million home renovation that took place in 2018.

Meghan also came under fire for the $71,000 dress she wore in the couple's engagement photos.

The contribution from UK taxpayers toward the entire British monarchy comes to approximately  "£1 per head per year," Harry and Meghan informed their website readers.

Taxpayers took to social media to slam Meghan and Harry following their announcement, claiming it's time their money goes elsewhere.

"I think their plans for independent living hinge on them being able to monetise their titles," one Twitter user wrote on Thursday.

"Go have a wonderful free life in Canada and get booed when you come back to good old blighty? You can't have your cake and eat it," another wrote.

"This isn't stepping back, it's stepping forward. With greed and enormous egos it's all about them," a separate person tweeted.

[kelvintimeline]

Pride is about celebrating together as people that aren't heterosexual and/or cis. Why would you try to divide the LGBT community during OUR month, I don't get it. All of us aren't heterosexual/cis, asexuals included. All of us face prejudice or discrimination and pride month is about fighting the negative and being proud of ourselves and the people who were proud before us.

Cishet aces are heterosexual. Full stop. If you’re going to come into my inbox, try to not be blatantly incorrect from the get go. Anyways...

It is very, very disgusting to frame LGBT people as people just “aren’t heterosexual or cis.” We aren’t defined by what we lack or what we aren’t, we are defined by who we are. LGBT people are people who love the same gender or are trans. We are lesbians and gay men and bi folk and trans people. Nothing else unless it’s an identity that falls under the umbrellas some of those terms offer (ie nonbinary people fall under the trans umbrella, tho not at nonbinary people identify as trans).

I am not a “not heterosexual” person, I am bisexual. I am not a “not cis” person, I am agender.

And it doesn’t fucking matter if “all of us face discriminaton,” it’s about who faces systemic oppression on the basis of who you love and how your identity subverts expectations surrounding gender (which is something ‘who you love’ also tackles’). Pride month is about all of our successes in fighting the tyranny of cishet oppression and mourning all of our losses.

Pride Month is about the warmth of our culture, the depths of our history, the strength of our activism, and our push against the solitude of our oppression.

A cis straight person who doesn’t feel sexual attraction has nothing to do with any of that besides standing in the way of our progress. Cis straight people are “the negative” we are fighting, even if they have their own shit to deal with for being ace or polyamorous or kinky or voluntarily celibate or involuntarily celibate or whatever the fuck else they think is their cross to bear.

CIshet aces, cishet aros, and cis aroaces were not at Stonewall. Were not at our die ins and political funerals during the AIDS Crisis. Did not build the Gay Liberation Front. Were not part of the homophile movement. Had nothing to gain from Lawrence v Texas or Obergefell v Hodges. They have not enjoyed the drag scene that has existed since the 1920s if not earlier. Gilbert Baker was not thinking of them when he made the rainbow flag.

All of these things affected the L G B and T of the LGBT community in some form and yet... “Me no fucky” wasn’t a part of any of that. It just wasn’t. I don’t care if that’s crass but “Waaah, I don’t wanna fuck” or perhaps even less coherently “I DO wanna fuck but I just don’t experience  sexual attraction but I’ve hit my head so hard I think wanting to fuck someone isn’t sexual attraction” wasn’t a rallying cry for literally any of it.

There is not a single event in LGBT history that is tied to the efforts or goals of cis straight or cis aroace people who defined themselves as anything other than allies.

The history being celebrated during Pride Month isn’t ace history. Frankly, there is little ace history at all unless you count online moments like the creation of AVEN or when aces used holocaust/AIDS activism imagery as a reference to the fucking Kinsey scale (which is problematic as is).

“All of us face discrimination yadda yadda yadda.” Yeah, no, we’re not in fucking High School Musical, we’re not all in this together; cis straight people and cis aroace people will always be part of the systems creating anti-LGBT discrimination and oppression and no amount of wilful ignorance or subterfuge can change that. I don’t care how strong your campaign to rebrand misogyny and rape culture as aphobia goes--that does not mitigate cishets and cis aroaces role in my oppression as an LGBT person.

Try again with someone less versed in ace and LGBT history.

[aclslibrarian]

Billy Summers

UnCovered review by Stephanie Baker, ACLS IT

Stephen King announced his retirement in 2002, and then along came over 20 more novels, novellas, and collections. Among them are new classics such as Under the Dome, 11/22/63, the Bill Hodges Trilogy, the awaited Holly Gibney Series, and now Billy Summers.

All of King’s post 2002 works, including this one, exhibit an easiness and flow to his writing that he was arguably lacking in a few of his publications preceding his ‘retirement’ (in this reviewer’s humble opinion anyway). However, what makes Billy Summers different is its noticeable absence of the otherworldly. Billy is just a man who’s - with the brief exception of a scenario raising the Overlook Hotel - life experiences, past and present, have solid footing in reality.  As many of King’s protagonists are, Billy Summers is an anti-hero; a gun-man for hire for which you can’t help but like and root. Throughout the novel, the King of Horror spotlights the horrors of the real world by weaving in issues of the times: Afghanistan, the #METOO movement, child trafficking, domestic abuse, and even prescient references to the looming pandemic.

Billy Summers is an assassin and an avenger with a heart and, yes, even a moral code because whether something or someone is good or bad is not always cut and dry in any of King’s novels. This is also true of other primary characters in the story; Alice a young woman wronged, who becomes Billy’s companion and champion, and Bucky, Billy’s servicer and enabler living on the edge. King even manages to redeem the mob figures who double cross Billy without justifying their way of life.

This novel presents a new Stephen King at his former best. If you are a fan or just starting his considerable library, you won’t be disappointed here. As Billy Summers reveals his own story through the writing of a sham novel-that-is-really-a-memoir, you are given a window into Stephen King’s own use of writing as catharsis. Let’s hope this is not “one last job,“ Dear Reader, because as long as Mr. King remains ‘retired’ I’m looking forward to more of his process and what is yet to come.

[your-dietician]

Breakthroughs from the tennis court to the Supreme Court

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/tennis/breakthroughs-from-the-tennis-court-to-the-supreme-court/

Breakthroughs from the tennis court to the Supreme Court

From the first U.S. Supreme Court ruling to address homosexuality to the first bisexual “Bachelorette,” here are 10 historic LGBTQ milestones from around the world.

Kathy Kozachenko

First out gay person elected to office in the U.S.

Kathy Kozachenko holds a photo of her son and her partner at her home in Pittsburgh in 2015.Chris Goodney / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Three years before Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, out lesbian Kathy Kozachenko was voted onto the Ann Arbor City Council in Michigan on April 2, 1974.

Kozachenko was just 21 and a student at the University of Michigan, a hotbed of anti-war protests and activism supporting racial justice, women’s rights and other causes.

Her sexual orientation didn’t seem to be an issue with voters, and “gay liberation was not a major issue in the campaign,” Kozachenko said in her victory speech, Bloomberg reported. 

“This year we talked about rent control. We talked about the city’s budget. We talked about police priorities, and we had a record of action to run on,” she said at the time. 

Kozachenko only served one two-year term and eventually moved to Pittsburgh, where she remained involved in gay activism and met her longtime partner, MaryAnn Geiger.

“I am so proud of all the activists that came after me,” Kozachenko told NBC News last year. “The people that pushed and pushed and pushed for gay marriage, the transgender people that have pushed for their rights … I’m grateful for the chance that I was able to play a small part in this.” 

‘Wings’ (1927)

First male-male kiss in a Hollywood movie 

Charles “Buddy” Rogers and Richard Arlen during the filming of “Wings” in 1927.Hulton Archive / Getty Images

William A. Wellman’s silent film “Wings,” the first movie to win the Academy Award for best picture, follows Jack (Charles Rogers) and David (Richard Arlen) as they enlist in the Army Air Service during World War I and bond during basic training before being shipped off to France.  

While they’re ostensibly romantic rivals for “it girl” Clara Bow, neither “shows as much love for her … as they do for each other,” queer writer Kevin Sessums wrote, according to the LGBT History Project blog. 

In the pre-Hays Code film’s climax, Jack accidentally shoots down David, who has commandeered a German biplane. Running to his dying friend’s side, Jack takes David in his arms and begs forgiveness. As the camera zooms in, the two stroke each other’s hair tenderly and Jack declares, “You know there is nothing in the world that means so much to me as your friendship.”

The men share a lingering closed-lip kiss before Jack takes his final breath.  

“While the relationship is referred to repeatedly as a friendship, the acting and directing of the film make it obvious that the men’s feelings were romantic,” wrote culture critic and curator Francesca Seravalle. “A swell of romantic string instruments plays in the background as Jack mourns over Dave’s still body. The directing choices made by Wellman humanized both characters and allowed the audience to experience the tragedy without exploiting the perceived exoticness of a relationship between two men.”

One, Inc. v. Olesen

First U.S. Supreme Court ruling to address homosexuality

Founded in 1952, ONE, Inc. was one of the earliest gay rights organizations in the United States and the first to have its own offices. 

An accompanying magazine, One Magazine, started publication in 1953 — selling through subscriptions and at Los Angeles newsstands — and is considered the first mass-produced gay publication in America.

In October 1954, L.A. Postmaster Otto K. Olesen refused to deliver the magazine, declaring it “obscene, lewd, lascivious and filthy.” ONE sued but lost the case and a subsequent appeal — a panel of federal judges declared “Sappho Remembered,” a lesbian love story that ran in one issue, “nothing more than cheap pornography calculated to promote lesbianism.”  

Founding editors Dale Jennings and Don Slater appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which, surprisingly, agreed to hear their case.

On Jan. 13, 1958, without even hearing oral arguments, the justices issued a terse, one-line ruling reversing the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision and affirming that the mere subject of homosexuality was not obscene.

In a Washington Post op-ed in 2014, Brookings Institution fellow Jonathan Rauch called One, Inc. v Olesen “the seminal gay rights case in America — the one that extended First Amendment protection to gay-related speech.”

Marcia Kadish & Tanya McCloskey

First same-sex couple legally married in the United States

Marcia Kadish, left, and Tanya McCloskey after being pronounced wife and wife at Cambridge City Hall in Massachusetts on May 17, 2004.Dina Rudick / Boston Globe via Getty Images

On Nov. 18, 2003, Massachusetts became the first state to recognize same-sex marriage when, in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the state Supreme Court ruled it could not “deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry.”

“Recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of the same sex will not diminish the validity or dignity of opposite-sex marriage,” wrote Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, “any more than recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of a different race devalues the marriage of a person who marries someone of her own race.”

The first licenses were issued on May 17, 2004, and McCloskey and Kadish, who had already been together nearly 20 years at that point, picked theirs up a few minutes after midnight. With a waiver that allowed them to skip the traditional three-day waiting period, the women exchanged vows later that morning at Cambridge City Hall.

“We felt we were married already,” Kadish told NPR’s “Morning Edition” in 2019. “This was just making it legal.”

At least 78 same-sex couples married in Massachusetts that day — the same day President George W. Bush called for a congressional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

“The sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges,” Bush said in a statement. “All Americans have a right to be heard in this debate.”

It wasn’t until 2015 that McCloskey and Kadish’s union was recognized federally, when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively made same-sex marriage the law of the land in Obergefell v. Hodges.

By that time, McCloskey had been diagnosed with endometrial cancer. The disease spread quickly, and she died on Jan. 6, 2016.

“We wanted to lead by example, not that we were leaders of anything,” Kadish told NPR. “We just wanted to make sure that the world saw the most positive side of being a gay couple.”

While Kadish and McCloskey were the first same-sex couple legally wed in the U.S., a marriage license mistakenly issued to gay couple Michael McConnell and Jack Baker back in 1971 was retroactively validated in 2019, making them the longest-married same-sex couple in the world.

Chicago’s Gay Liberation March 

First gay pride march

One day before the first Christopher Street Liberation Day march in New York, the Windy City hosted the world’s first Pride march on June 27, 1970 — albeit a much smaller one than the Big Apple’s. The half-mile procession officially went from Washington Square Park to the Water Tower at the bustling intersection of Chicago and Michigan avenues, but many participants continued down to the Civic Center plaza (now Daley Plaza).

Once there, about 150 people listened to speeches at the plaza before doing a “chain dance around the Picasso statue as the marchers shouted, ‘Gay power to gay people,’” the Chicago Tribune reported.

Chicago Gay Liberation, which organized the event, chose the date because the Stonewall uprising had started on the last Saturday in June the year prior. The members also wanted to reach the biggest crowd of shoppers on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile.

Today, the Chicago Pride Parade takes place on the last Sunday of June, drawing more than 800,000 people to North Halsted Street, long known as “Boystown.”

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

First out LGBTQ prime minister

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir speaks with the media after winning the elections on April 25, 2009 in Reykjavik. Olivier Morin / AFP via Getty Images

While gay finance minister Per-Kristian Foss was briefly in charge of Norway in 2002 when both the prime minister and foreign minister were traveling abroad, Iceland’s Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is the world’s first openly LGBTQ elected head of state.

A former flight attendant, Jóhanna was first elected to the Althingi (Iceland’s parliament) in 1978 as part of the Social Democratic Party. Throughout her career, she has also served as deputy speaker of the Althingi, vice chair of the SDP and minister of social affairs.

On Feb. 1, 2009, Jóhanna was formally sworn in as Iceland’s first female prime minister and the first out LGBTQ world leader in modern history. She served from 2009 to 2013, steering the country’s economy “back on solid footing” after the massive financial crisis, according to Britannica, with the country’s GDP growing 3 percent in both 2011 and 2012.

She and girlfriend Jónína Leósdóttir entered into a civil union in 2002. In 2010, when Iceland recognized same-sex marriage midway through Jóhanna’s tenure, the pair became one the first same-sex married couples in the country.

Society for Human Rights

First officially recognized gay rights group in the U.S.

German immigrant Henry Gerber launched the Society for Human Rights out of his Chicago home in 1924 and received an official charter from the state of Illinois, making it the first incorporated group devoted to gay rights in the U.S.

The society’s publication, Friendship and Freedom, is believed to be the first American publication for gay people. 

Stationed in his former homeland during World War I, Gerber witnessed Berlin’s thriving gay subculture and was influenced by the work of pioneering sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld.

Returning to the States, he took a job with the post office and founded the society out of his apartment at 1710 N. Crilly Court in Chicago’s Old Town Triangle neighborhood. 

But the organization lasted less than a year, disbanding in 1925 after police raids on both a member’s home and Gerber’s apartment. Gerber was fired from the post office and eventually moved to New York, where he continued advocating for gay rights until his death in 1972.

In 2015, Gerber’s Chicago home was designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service.

Renée Richards

First transgender tennis player to compete in the U.S. Open

Dr. Renée Richards reaches for a backhanded return during a match with Australia’s Lesley Hunt in the $100,000 Women’s Professional Tennis Tournament at Walter Brown Arena.Bettmann / Bettmann Archive

Renée Richards was set to play in the 1976 U.S. Open until officials learned she was assigned male at birth and attempted to ban her from competing.

Richards had been a tennis prodigy from a young age, playing in the men’s Open several times and even making the semifinals in 1972. A successful ophthalmologist, she medically transitioned in 1975 and began living as Renée Richards (the name Renée meaning “reborn”).

She kept a fairly low profile — entering a 1976 competition as Renée Clark — but her transition was “outed” in a local news report by San Diego reporter Dick Carlson, father of Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson. Fans rooted against her, with shirts reading “Go away, Renee,” and late-night talk show hosts made crude jokes.

When Richards entered the Tennis Week Open in 1976, 25 of the 32 women in the competition withdrew.

To keep Richards off the court, the United States Tennis Association started demanding a chromosome test for all female players. She challenged that policy in a case that went before the New York Supreme Court.

Mirroring arguments made by groups seeking to ban transgender athletes today, the USTA argued it was trying to maintain “fairness” in the face of “as many as 10,000 transsexuals in the United States and many more female impersonators or imposters” who would be eager to snatch “millions of dollars of prize money.”

Billie Jean King, who had played doubles with Richards, testified that she “does not enjoy physical superiority or strength so as to have an advantage over women competitors in the sport of tennis.”

In a landmark victory, the court ruled in Richards’ favor.

“When an individual such as plaintiff, a successful physician, a husband and father, finds it necessary for [her] own mental sanity to undergo a sex reassignment, the unfounded fears and misconceptions of defendants must give way to the overwhelming medical evidence that this person is now female,” Judge Alfred Ascione wrote in the majority opinion.

Two weeks later, Richards played in the 1977 U.S. Open, where she lost to Wimbledon champ Virginia Wade in the first round. She did reach the doubles finals with Betty Ann Stuart, but the pair lost to Betty Stöve and a fiery new upstart named Martina Navratilova. 

Four years later, Renée Richards retired from professional tennis at age 47. She continued her thriving ophthalmology practice and even coached Navratilova to two wins at Wimbledon. 

Karl M. Baer

First person to surgically transition

Born in 1885 to a Jewish family in Arolsen, Germany, Baer was assigned female at birth, though the midwife told his father the baby’s body had “such strange” characteristics it was impossible to determine the gender.

In his 1907 autobiography, “Memoirs of a Man’s Maiden Years,” published under the pseudonym N.O. Body, Baer wrote about being ostracized at school and feeling ill at ease in his assigned sex.

While he is often referred to as transgender, today Baer would more accurately be considered intersex.

“I was born as a boy and raised as a girl,” he wrote. “One may raise a healthy boy in as womanish manner as one wishes and a female creature in as mannish; never will this cause their senses to remain forever reversed.”

In 1904, Baer moved to Hamburg to work as a social worker with the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. It was there that he began living as a man.

“I introduced myself as a man, never as a woman,” Baer wrote. “What am I really? Am I a man? Oh God, no. It would be an indescribable delight if I were. But miracles don’t happen anymore these days.”

Two years later, Baer was in a trolley accident in Berlin. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors realized his ID listed him as female despite his presenting as male. They connected him with Magnus Hirschfeld, who diagnosed him as “a man who was mistakenly identified as a woman.”  

With a permit from the Prussian Interior Ministry, Baer underwent a multistage gender confirmation procedure, Haaretz reported, though the exact details of the surgery are unknown. He was released from the hospital in December 1906 with a medical certificate identifying him as male. The following year, court clerks in Arolsen issued him a new birth certificate.

Others had transitioned socially before, but Baer “was unusual in that he used medical technology and surgical means to change his gender,” transgender historian Iris Rachamimov told Haaretz. 

Brooke Blurton

First bisexual “Bachelorette”

Brooke Blurton on June 19, 2019 in Perth, Australia.Faith Moran / GC Images

Since “The Bachelor” debuted on ABC in 2002, the marital-minded franchise has spawned multiple spinoff series and over 30 international editions. But it wasn’t until the upcoming season seven of “The Bachelorette Australia” that producers tapped an out member of the LGBTQ community to headline the show: 26-year-old Brooke Blurton, who is bisexual.

For the first time in the franchise’s history, the star will choose among both men and women during the rose ceremony. 

“I am not too sure if Australia is ready for it,” Blurton, who previously appeared on the Down Under versions of “The Bachelor” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” told The Daily Telegraph. “I certainly am. If it makes people feel uncomfortable in any way, I really challenge them to think about why it does.”

Blurton, a Noongar Yamatji woman from Western Australia, will also be the first Indigenous woman on the show.

“We are a nation of people from so many different backgrounds, so many different cultures and so many different experiences, yet we all have one thing in common — we all want to be loved in a way that is meaningful to us,” “Bachelorette” host Osher Günsberg said in a statement. “I can’t wait to get started on helping our Bachelorette Brooke find that kind of love.”

In the U.S., former “Bachelor” star Colton Underwood came out as gay in April, two years after appearing on the series’ 23rd season.

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[eichy815]

Sincerely-Held Bigotry

Originally Published on June 26, 2017 on Eichy Says 

It’s been exactly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled – in the 5-4 decision of Obergefell v. Hodges – that same-sex marriages must be legal for secular purposes in all fifty states.  This had been a long time coming...and this verdict (in favor of same-sex couples who desire legal marital protections) should have been rendered decades ago!

Two years later, there has been no erosion of rights for opposite-sex couples who wish to enter a civil marriage.  Same-sex couples now have a significantly higher level of equality that they were denied for so long...although there are still battles to be fought on behalf of LGBT people in the areas of employment discrimination, adoption, and harassment.

The major “gay issue” of the moment appears to be the battle over whether “religious liberty” is a viable defense if private business owners want to discriminate against LGBT customers.  This was precipitated by the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, where Colorado-based baker Jack Phillips refused to design a wedding cake for the same-sex nuptials of customers Charles Craig and David Mullins.  It will now go to the U.S. Supreme Court to be dissected and analyzed at the federal level.

In November of 2015, I wrote an editorial entitled “Faking the Cake,” which described my socially-libertarian views on this controversy.  My position on the “Wedding Cake Case” remains the same, today:  I oppose the concept of federal employees being able to deny services to LGBT people in the public sphere (as Kim Davis infamously attempted to, that same year)...but I believe that *PRIVATE* business owners reserve the right to deny service to any citizen – for any reason – at their discretion.  They just have to be prepared for the social and/or economic fallout...in the form of backlash or boycotts from the general public.

My narrative, today, goes more deeply to the core of why “anti-gay” attitudes are still an issue in the 21st Century.  By and large, it’s for the same reason that we still see “whiteness,” “masculinity,” “attractiveness,” personal wealth, able-bodied (or able-minded) dynamism, and interpretations of what makes someone a “good Christian” revered by so many Joe Schmuckatellis throughout the United States.

When I attended the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire in the early-aughts, I took a couple of courses from Bob Nowlan, a Professor of English, Critical Theory, and Cinema Studies.  Bob is openly-gay and extremely revolutionary in his approach to teaching as well as when developing his curriculum emphases.  In light of the fact that he himself is obviously pro-LGBT, he structures his course content in a way that acknowledges (and introduces students to) opposing viewpoints that can be hostile toward LGBT people (juxtaposed alongside the pro-LGBT perspectives, of course).

I once took an invigorating critical theory course taught by Bob that was entitled “Queer Theory and Culture.”  During one class session, he showed us a video documenting the positions publicly taken by citizens who mobilize against ballot initiatives for LGBT equality (or, as it often happened to be the case, in favor of ballot initiatives that would enshrine secular discrimination against LGBT Americans into state constitutions).

In one segment of that video, I vividly remember a middle-aged Boston-area woman being interviewed (in her church, of course) about her opposition to the legal recognition of same-sex marriage.  She insisted, casually and evenhandedly, that her opposition didn’t come from a place of hatred or spite...they were simply, in her words, “sincerely-held” religious beliefs.

During the group discussion that Bob led, afterward, I expressed my view that people such as this Boston woman are the real problem – as opposed to the “God Hates Fags” picketers who pop up at funerals or Pride Parades.  It’s very easy for any of us to see the hatred oozing from the pores of the Westboro Baptist Church’s congregation.  But when someone peddles their orientationism against LGBT people in such a cavalier, articulate, non-aggressive manner – as this Boston woman did – it normalizes and dignifies the “othering” of Americans who aren’t heterosexual.  It makes it seem as though heterosexism or homophobia “aren’t quite as bad” when coming from someone who appears halfway-sane.

The semantic choice of someone’s bigoted worldview as being “sincerely-held” is deceptive.  In my September 2016 op-ed entitled “Purple Pain: A Fairy Tale of ‘False Moderates’,” I point to former U.S. Senator (and Al Gore’s 2000 vice-presidential running mate) Joe Lieberman as a classic example of someone who spouted the mantra that disapproval of homosexuality isn’t coming from a place of hatred or discrimination...but rather, is based on “sincerely-held morally-based views.”

And look no further than the ambivalence of my former sociology instructor, Leonard, when we tackled homosexuality during our classroom discussions.

At the root of it is the misperception that homosexuality and bisexuality are all about gluttony, superficiality, and deviance.  However, this flavor of cultural orientationism doesn’t exactly gel with secular parity in the legal sense.

First, there’s the misnomer that “If everybody on the planet was gay, humanity would become extinct as a species.”  What they fail to acknowledge is that, if everybody on the planet was exclusively heterosexual, there would be even more global overpopulation than there already is.

And, if a lack of procreation is the basis for denying people legal equality, then, by that same reasoning, infertile people shouldn’t be allowed to remain married.  Or, couples who choose not to raise children shouldn’t be allowed to remain married.

Then there are the classic Bible verses that people trot out, which appear to condemn homosexuality: namely Romans 1:26-27 and Leviticus 18:22.

What biblical-loyalists fail to acknowledge here is that the meaning of Scripture was much different back then compared to nowadays.  We disregard biblical text that makes reference to marital obedience, slavery, divorce, and eating shrimp...yet, we, for some reason, are still willing to cling to the passages that cite homosexuality as a sin.

This, of course, assumes that the Bible was 100% unaltered between the present and when Scripture was first written.  And, even if the Bible remained 100% intact over centuries, you still have to have faith to embrace the implication that all of the Bible’s multiple authors were writing strictly based on divine intervention...rather than interweaving their own deception, ignorance, or schizophrenia into biblical text.

If you believe that, then you are CHOOSING to believe that.  Which means...you are CHOOSING to be bigoted.  Which means...on some level, your embrace of this bigotry is either conscious or subconscious.  Which means...you will get called out on it.  #SorryNotSorry

There is also the red herring of bringing pedophilia, necrophilia, and bestiality into the equation.  “Oh, if we accept homosexuality, should we then proceed to accept pedophilia, necrophilia, and bestiality?”

The big difference: homosexual relationships can (and should) involve consent.  If you sexually prey upon a child, the child can’t legally consent.  If you try to have sex with a corpse, that dead person cannot consent.  If you wish to have sex with an animal, the non-human creature cannot legally consent.

Additionally, moral invokers of the “slippery slope” fallacy will bring up the scenario of the American public hypothetically condoning incest.  But a romantic/sexual relationship between two people of the same-sex related by blood is NOT incest.  Because they’re, you know, NOT RELATED BY BLOOD.

As far as polygamy and polyandry (multiple-spouse relationships)...I wouldn’t personally desire that for myself.  But if several parties want to legally enter into a group marriage – and all of those parties are in consent – I wouldn’t have any problem with that.

Finally, even if there’s One Supreme Deity who has indeed determined that homosexuality is a sin, unconditionally – what gives us the right to use the law to legislate that morality?  If homosexuality is so morally-abominable, wouldn’t He just punish all of us queers upon our deaths, anyway?

There are many things that could be construed as “sins,” which we routinely overlook (or, at least, we don’t retool the law to hold people hostage).

Should all secular opposite-sex marriages (if there is no house-of-worship involved) be dissolved, and then be replaced with state-sanctioned covenant marriages?

Should every married couple have to gain the permission of a clergyperson before legally getting a divorce?

Should any case of proven infidelity committed by a married person also come with automatic punitive penalties under the law?

Should heterosexuals who enter non-romantic marriages-of-convenience be sentenced to prison time for violating “the intent of God”...???

In most cases, what I believe it really comes down to is that the folks who rail against homosexuality, deep down, view it as “icky.”  So they will try to rape and maul the law itself as a way of enforcing their “sincerely-held beliefs” upon everybody else.

Well, I find it “icky” when people litter inside of grocery stores.  That doesn’t mean I’m going to call for all grocers to install 1984-style cameras and draconian behavioral guidelines in their supermarkets.

But, as William Shakespeare wrote, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

Translation: conservative activists who crusade against secular recognition for same-sex couples want the “upper hand” in persuading others to similarly subscribe to the bigoted beliefs in which they themselves are choosing to believe.  They will use buzz phrases like “lifestyle choice” or “special rights” to enact this agenda.

Why else would we see states such as Mississippi tout bigoted legislation? – such as House Bill 1523 (the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act), that codifies discrimination by purposely using the phrase “sincerely-held religious belief” to justify equal protection of LGBT citizens.

Some of the language from the actual bill:

“...sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions...”

“...marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman...”

“...sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage...”

“...male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth...”

This is why critics accuse conservatives and/or Republicans (or even some conservative Democrats) of trying to intrude into people’s bedrooms.

And, this is why current Vice-President Mike Pence will not win – assuming that Trump must step down, and Pence runs for the presidency in 2020.  We never asked for Mike Pence (we never even asked for Trump, and we certainly didn’t ask for Trump to pick Pence as a running mate)...and, in the process, Pence would take down the entire conservative movement along with himself.

Job discrimination, policing bathrooms, Pride Flag shaming, heteronormativity, and “religious liberty” laws (or corresponding attitudes).  Bring it on, bigots!  We survived the Holocaust, McCarthyism, the Stonewall Riots, the AIDS panic, and attempts to enact the Federal Marriage Amendment.

This time around, social media and generational awakenings – as well as common sense – are on our side.

Are things better now – for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people – than they were five years ago?  Absolutely – the secular legalization of same-sex marriage has made all the difference.  We’re not going back.  Just think how good things could be five years FROM NOW.

So no, I don’t believe the government should force private businesses to provide services to same-sex couples or for gay-friendly content.  Just like I don’t believe the government should force churches or other religious establishments to recognize same-sex marriages.

On the other hand, you may whine that we’re trying to force you how to think.  That’s not quite true – we’re asking you to reevaluate how you think, insofar as one very specific topic (homosexuality).

Condemning someone else based on their sexual orientation per se is no different than if you were to condemn someone solely based on their genitalia, their genetic ethnicity, their gender identity, their peacefully-practiced religion, their physiological or neurological disability, the geographic region in which they reside, or the income bracket that they happened to be born into.

And that’s my “sincerely-held common sense” talking!

[kuralaw]

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

FACTS       

14 same-sex couples and two widowers filed suits in the District Courts of their home states (Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee) claiming that their 14th Amendment rights are being violated by the states denying them lawful marriages or recognition under the law.  Each District Court ruled in the petitioner’s favor, but the Sixth Circuit court reversed the decision after consolidating the cases.  

QUESTION       

“Does the 14th Amendment require states to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples and recognize the marriage if performed in another state?” (Yes)

REASONING       

KENNEDY - “Transcendent importance” of marriage.  Due Process clause affords freedoms dealing with personal choice and dignity.  The constitution protects same-sex marriage equally:  concept of personal choice is protected and extends to all people regardless of orientation.  Marriage as keystone of social foundation.  Denying same-sex couples the right is demeaning.  Always defining rights by who exercised them in the past, groups would never get rights if denied once.  The right to marry is fundamental, extends to same-sex couples, and state laws outlawing this are now invalid.  Baker v. Nelson is overruled.  Individuals don’t need to wait for legislation to asserting a right.  There is no basis to refuse recognition of a marriage issued validly in another state.

(DISSENT)        ROBERTS (SCALIA, THOMAS) - Court does not have jurisdiction to rule on the content of laws.  Constitution does not have one clear idea of “marriage”, it is up to the states to decide the nature.  Majority decision an “act of will” and not a reasoned judgement.  Makes an argument about same-sex marriage carrying equal weight as polyamourous relationships?  “The state has no institution for same-sex marriages,” forgetting that it’s a couple participating in the institution of “marriage”.  Equal Protection Clause is not violated because states interest in “preserving the traditional institution of marriage” is legitimate.  Majority is concerned with social change.  Court’s “acculumation of power” is at the expense of the people:  today’s decision has the effect of discouraging discussion and discourse, removing the topic of same-sex marriage from the “realm of democratic decision”.  People who created and voted for the anti-marriage laws did so using the democratic process and now have their voices silenced.  Constitution has nothing to do with decision today.

DECISION       

Reversed the decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

RULE           

The court ruled liberally for same-sex couples rights again, finding that consitutional rights were more fundamental than states laws prohibiting their rights.  Court decided using same-sex couples right to liberty and privacy, rather than their response to homosexuality itself.

[gyrlversion]

DAN HODGES on how Phillip Hammond and Amber Rudd could make Corbyn PM

The No 10 official didn’t need to wait for Friday’s vote.

‘We’re going to lose. And when that happens we’re heading for a General Election. 

‘People keep asking who is going to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister. The answer is it’s probably going to be Jeremy Corbyn.’

Inside Downing Street, something has finally snapped. The dogged resilience that has characterised May’s attempts to drag her deal over the line has finally given way to fury.

Chancellor Phillip Hammond, pictured above, is one of ‘the Four Horsemen of the Corbynite Apocalypse’. In the eyes of May’s dwindling band of Cabinet allies, these are the true architects of the indicative vote process they believe is now driving Britain towards its first-ever Marxist Prime Minister

Partly at the Little Corporals of the ERG who are seen to have put personal vanity before actually delivering Brexit.

Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd is also in ‘the Four Horsemen of the Corbynite Apocalypse’ along with David Gauke and Greg Clark

Partly at Labour MPs who the Prime Minister believes have been putting on a show of potentially supporting her deal solely to burnish their anti-EU credentials to Leave-supporting constituents.

But primarily at members of her own Cabinet, who May thinks have been professing public loyalty but engaging in malicious private subterfuge.

And top of the list are the group described to me as ‘the Four Horsemen of the Corbynite Apocalypse’ – Amber Rudd, David Gauke, Greg Clark and Philip Hammond.

In the eyes of May’s dwindling band of Cabinet allies, these are the true architects of the indicative vote process they believe is now driving Britain towards its first-ever Marxist Prime Minister.

‘They’ve pretended to back her,’ says one. ‘But all the time they’ve been working against her. If you look at the Ministers who resigned before the indicative votes motion on Monday, it was their allies. They were sending a signal that indicative votes were the way to go. And the result is they’ve bound her hands, and are going to deliver a Corbyn government.’

The No 10 view is there is now an inexorable path leading from indicative votes to a General Election and a Labour administration.

Unless MPs come to their senses, this week, the House of Commons will finally opt to kill off Brexit for good. This will probably be in the form of support for remaining in a customs union or single market, though some MPs believe there is still an outside chance of forcing through a second referendum.

At that point May will be ordered to return to Brussels and begin negotiations on a deal that directly undermines her manifesto pledge, something she has already said she will not countenance. 

In the eyes of May’s dwindling band of Cabinet allies, these are the true architects of the indicative vote process they believe is now driving Britain towards its first-ever Marxist Prime Minister

‘She can’t do that,’ another Minister explains. ‘There’s no way she can be forced by the Commons to break her word. So it’s either an Election, or she walks. But if she walks, how can any other Tory leader get elected by pledging to just be a puppet of Dominic Grieve and Hilary Benn? Basically all routes lead to an Election.’ 

It is this reality that prompted May to deliver her stark warning to the Commons: ‘I fear we are reaching the limits of this process in this House.’

For their part, the Four Horsemen are perplexed by the argument that the shift to indicative votes has undermined the PM.

‘This is crazy,’ one tells me. ‘What do they think moved 82 Conservatives to back her deal in the end? It’s because of the threat the indicative votes process created.’

Another says: ‘The plan wasn’t going to be indicative votes. We were all agreed we were going for a long extension. The PM argued for a long extension in Cabinet.

‘And it was working. The DUP were coming on board. Labour MPs were coming on board. Then she woke up and said, ‘Actually, I’m going for a short extension’, gave that speech attacking every MP in the Commons, and the whole thing fell apart.’

The man who shot down May…in his Dad’s flying jacket

Tory MPs were desperate for the Men In Grey Suits to tell Theresa May it was time to announce she was standing down as Prime Minister. 

But at the end of the day, I understand it was one man in a weathered flying jacket who undertook the onerous task. 

‘It was Iain Duncan Smith who finally told her,’ a Minister says. ‘He pulled her aside at the end of Sunday’s Chequers summit and said he needed a private word. 

‘He was standing there in his dad’s old flying jacket and said, ‘Sorry, Prime Minister, but time’s up now.’ ‘ 

And how did she take the news? ‘Not very well.’ You’re a braver man than me, IDS.

Brave: IDS arrives at Chequers last week in a Morgan sports car – and his dad’s old jacket

But despite this scepticism, there is now growing pressure on May from within Cabinet to think the unthinkable. ‘If the House votes for a customs union, then the Government needs to take that forward,’ one Minister tells me.

Another says: ‘If it is clear that the DUP are not going to back the deal, then we need to go for a customs union.’

No 10 is preparing a final, desperate throw of the dice. This week they will have one last go at getting May’s deal over the line. But if they fail, officials admit that it is game over.

‘The House will write a customs union into law,’ a senior Downing Street aide explains, ‘and the Prime Minister can’t disobey the law. So at that point the only way to save Brexit is an Election or a no-confidence motion in the Government.’

In Labour circles, there is less anticipation at this prospect than might be expected. ‘We’ve no written Election plan, no new policy positions and The Independent Group will take votes from us in classic marginal seats,’ one Shadow Minister tells me.

But there is no avoiding the fundamentals. The 2019 campaign will be fought against a backdrop of a Conservative Party tearing itself apart, having failed to deliver on its central pledge of withdrawing Britain from the EU, and with a new untested leader.

Unless Theresa May U-turns on her pledges to not fight another election or oversee the next stage of the Brexit process, in which case, as one Tory MP said: ‘I’ll be voting Labour myself.’

A pale horse is approaching the gates of Downing Street. Its rider’s name is Corbyn.

Remember Steve, Spartans may be tough but, ultimately, they lost

News that the ERG rebels have branded themselves The Spartans, after the 300 heroes of the famous battle of Thermopylae, has not impressed Downing Street.

‘It wasn’t just 300 Spartans who held out against 300,000 Persians,’ a No 10 history buff informs me. 

‘They had hundreds of Thespians and Thebians with them. They were a Euro army. Plus, their state went into long-term decline after the battle, and they were soon outnumbered in Sparta by the Greeks.’ 

Any other lessons for Steve Baker and his gang? ‘Yes. The Spartans lost.’

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[benrleeusa]

[Dale Carpenter] U.K. Supreme Court: Baker Doesn't Have to Place Pro-Gay Marriage Message on Cake

But the ruling isn't based on free speech or religious liberty

In Lee v. Ashers Baking Company, decided yesterday, the United Kingdom Supreme Court concluded that a baker could not be required to write the words "Support Gay Marriage" in icing on a cake ordered by an LGBT rights advocate for a political event. Famed U.K. gay-rights activist Peter Tatchell, among many others, hailed it as "a victory for freedom of expression." The result is certainly consistent with the argument that bakers have a free-speech right not to include written messages on a wedding cake (a view Eugene and I implicitly endorsed in an amicus brief supporting the same-sex couple in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission). But the reasoning in Lee is something else.

In fact the U.K. Supreme Court avoided the question whether a baker's written-message refusal was affirmatively protected under the free-speech and religious-liberty provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. Instead, the court unanimously held that the baker's refusal to propound a written pro-same-sex marriage message did not violate the U.K.'s Equality Act 2006, which prohibits discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities or services on grounds of sexual orientation. I'll explain that rationale in this post.

At the same time, libertarian considerations regarding expression and religion informed the Lee decision. And it contains a potentially influential discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court's Masterpiece Cakeshop opinion from this past summer. I plan to say more about that in a future post.

The basic facts in Lee were these: The owners, the McArthurs, are a Christian couple who have operated their bakeries since 1992. They have six shops and employ 65 people. They run their business in accordance with their religious principles, including their traditionalist views of human sexuality and marriage. The plaintiff, Mr. Lee, is a gay man who volunteers for QueerSpace, an LGBT community organization in Belfast. Lee had previously bought cakes from the bakery in Belfast, but he was not personally known to the staff or to the McArthurs. He did not know anything about the McArthurs' beliefs about marriage. Neither they nor their staff knew of his sexual orientation. The bakery, Ashers, offered a "Build-a-Cake" service to customers. Customers could request particular images or inscriptions to be iced onto a cake. A leaflet advertising this service gave various examples of what could be done, but no religious or political restrictions were mentioned.

In 2014, Lee decided to take a cake to a Queerspace party marking the end of anti-homophobia week and celebrating the momentum toward the recognition of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. The court's description of the facts continues as follows:

On 8 or 9 May 2014, Mr Lee went into the shop and placed an order for a cake to be iced with his design, a coloured picture of cartoon-like characters "Bert and Ernie", the QueerSpace logo, and the headline "Support Gay Marriage". Mrs McArthur took the order but raised no objection at the time because she wished to consider how to explain her objection and to spare Mr Lee any embarrassment. Mr Lee paid for the cake. Over the following weekend, the McArthurs decided that they could not in conscience produce a cake with that slogan and so should not fulfil the order. On Monday 12 May 2014, Mrs McArthur telephoned Mr Lee and explained that his order could not be fulfilled because they were a Christian business and could not print the slogan requested. She apologised to Mr Lee and he was later given a full refund and the image was returned to him.

The district judge found that, when they refused to carry out the order, the defendants did perceive that Mr Lee was gay and/or associated with others who were gay; but one of the questions raised in the case stated was whether she was correct as a matter of law to make that finding. The Court of Appeal found it unnecessary to answer that question as the District Judge had made no finding that the order was cancelled because Mr Lee was perceived as being gay.

Mr Lee made arrangements with another cake provider for a similar cake which he was able to take with him to the party on 17 May.

Lee sued on the ground that the bakery had discriminated against him based on his actual or perceived sexual orientation. The trial judge awarded him 500 pounds (currently about $800) in damages and the appeals court affirmed. But the U.K. Supreme Court reversed, reasoning:

The District Judge did not find that the bakery refused to fulfil the order because of Mr Lee's actual or perceived sexual orientation. She found that they "cancelled this order because they oppose same sex marriage for the reason that they regard it as sinful and contrary to their genuinely held religious beliefs" (para 43). As the Court of Appeal pointed out, she did not take issue with the submission that the bakery would have supplied Mr Lee with a cake without the message "support gay marriage" and that they would also have refused to supply a cake with the message requested to a hetero-sexual customer (para 11). The objection was to the message, not the messenger. . . . The reason for treating Mr Lee less favourably than other would-be customers was not his sexual orientation but the message he wanted to be iced on the cake. Anyone who wanted that message would have been treated in the same way.

A common response to this sort of analysis is to complain that it sacrifices substantive equality to formalism. Thus, as the U.S. Supreme Court has observed, a tax on yarmulkes would be tantamount to a tax on Jews. Even though not all Jews wear yarmulkes, and not all yarmulke-wearers are Jewish, there is a very close relationship between yarmulke-wearing and Jewishness. Similarly, a ban on same-sex sexual relations discriminates against gay people even though not all homosexuals engage in homosexual sexual activity and not all who engage in such activity are gay. Few federal courts, including the Supreme Court, had any trouble determiming that statutes banning same-sex marriage discriminated against gay people even though not all homosexuals marry, or marry same-sex partners, and even though it's at least theoretically possible that not all same-sex spouses are homosexual. The very close relationship between the activity (homosexual sex or same-sex marriage) and the status (gay or lesbian) demonstrates that discrimination targetting the former is a proxy for discrimination targetting the latter.

The U.K. Supreme Court has an answer to this complaint in its discussion of "indissociability," the doctrine that one basis for discrimination cannot be distinguished from another:

The District Judge also considered at length the question of whether the criterion used by the bakery was "indissociable" from the protected characteristic and held that support for same sex marriage was indissociable from sexual orientation (para 42). This is, however, to misunderstand the role that "indissociability" plays in direct discrimination. It comes into play when the express or overt criterion used as the reason for less favourable treatment is not the protected characteristic itself but some proxy for it. Thus, in the classic case of James v Eastleigh Borough Council [1990] 2 AC 751, the criterion used for allowing free entry to the council's swimming pool was not sex but statutory retirement age. There was, however, an exact correspondence between the criterion of statutory retirement age and sex, because the retirement age for women was 60 and the retirement age for men was 65. Hence any woman aged 60 to 64 could enter free but no man aged 60 to 64 could do so. Again, in Preddy v Bull [2013] UKSC 73; [2013] 1 WLR 3741, letting double-bedded rooms to married couples but not to civil partners was directly discriminatory because marriage was (at that time) indissociable from hetero-sexual orientation. There is no need to consider that question in this case, as the criterion was quite clear. But even if there was, there is no such identity between the criterion and sexual orientation of the customer. People of all sexual orientations, gay, straight or bi-sexual, can and do support gay marriage. Support for gay marriage is not a proxy for any particular sexual orientation.

. . . It is deeply humiliating, and an affront to human dignity, to deny someone a service because of that person's race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or any of the other protected personal characteristics. But that is not what happened in this case and it does the project of equal treatment no favours to seek to extend it beyond its proper scope

Jack Phillips made a very similar argument in Masterpiece Cakeshop: he did not refuse to make a wedding cake for the gay couple because of their sexual orientation. Instead, he refused to do so because of his opposition to gay marriage. He would have refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding regardlesss of whether the customer ordering it was heterosexual or homosexual. Simlarly, he would not refuse to serve gay customers for other occasions. Like the McArthurs, he claimed that objected only to the message (support for same-sex marriage), not the messengers (gay customers).

But unlike the McArthurs' argument in Lee, Jack Phillips' argument that he did not discriminate based on sexual orientation was rejected by the Colorado Appeals Court in its opinion (reversed on other grounds by the Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop):

In these decisions [e.g., Lawrence v. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges], the Supreme Court recognized that, in some cases, conduct cannot be divorced from status. This is so when the conduct is so closely correlated with the status that it is engaged in exclusively or predominantly by persons who have that particular status. We conclude that the act of same-sex marriage constitutes such conduct because it is "engaged in exclusively or predominantly" by gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Masterpiece's distinction, therefore, is one without a difference. But for their sexual orientation, Craig and Mullins would not have sought to enter into a same-sex marriage, and but for their intent to do so, Masterpiece would not have denied them its services.

See generally the discussion at pp. 14-23. In this, the Colorado appeals court was consistent with many other state and federal court deisions.

What accounts for these seemingly divergent results?

One possibility is that American and British courts simply have different views about what constitutes discrimination-by-proxy or, as the U.K. Supreme Court called it, indissociability. The American approach is more likely to see proxy discrimination than the U.K. approach.

Another possibility is that important factual differences account for the different outcomes. First, the expressive (rather than sexual orientation) basis for the baker's refusal is more obvious and vivid when he declines to write an explicit written endorsement ("Support Gay Marriage") than when he refuses to bake an otherwise indistinguishable wedding cake that he would bake for anyone else but for its intended use in a gay wedding.

Second, the message of the cake in Lee could be affirmed by anyone, regardless of sexual orientation. It's worth noting that Lee himself was not getting married or seeking a wedding cake for anyone else's same-sex marrage; he wanted the cake for a party. As support for same-sex marriage surpasses 2/3 of the public, it's evident that the vast majority of the people who support gay marriage are not themselves gay. At the same time, same-sex marriage among heterosexuals is almost unheard of, and requests for gay wedding cakes by heterosexuals (even for others' weddings) would be correspondingly rare.

Mere "Support [for] Gay Marriage" can be disentangled from homosexual orientation to a much greater degree than the conduct of marrying a same-sex partner or of seeking a wedding cake for such an event. On this view, Jack Phillips' refusal to bake any cake at all for a gay wedding in Masterpiece Cakeshop is sexual orientation discrimination because it is closely linked to the sexual orientation of his customers. But the McArthurs' refusal to ice the words "Support Gay Marriage" in Lee is not sexual orientation discrimination because it is not much of a proxy for the sexual orientation of their customers.

There's no word yet on whether Lee might appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

[prideguynews]

A Belfast bakery run by evangelical Christians was not obliged to make a cake emblazoned with the message “support gay marriage”, the supreme courtroom has ruled, overturning a £500 damages award imposed on it.

The unanimous determination by the UK’s highest courtroom was greeted as a victory for cost-free speech but condemned by gay rights groups and the Equality Commission of Northern Ireland as a backward move in combating discrimination.

Ashers had refused to make the cake, showcasing the Sesame Road puppets Bert and Ernie, in 2014 for Gareth Lee, who supports the campaign to legalise similar-intercourse relationship in Northern Ireland. He wanted to get it to a non-public purpose marking Intercontinental Day From Homophobia.

The judgment, delivered following the supreme court’s initial hearing in Northern Ireland in May perhaps, reverses earlier conclusions in Belfast county courtroom and a courtroom of enchantment ruling that the corporation discriminated versus Lee, who is gay, on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The 5 justices on the supreme courtroom – Girl Hale, Lord Mance, Lord Kerr, Lord Hodge and Girl Black – located the bakery did not refuse to fulfil Lee’s order simply because of his sexual orientation and therefore there was no discrimination on all those grounds. The enterprise partnership between Lee and Ashers did not involve people today remaining refused work or companies simply because of their spiritual religion, the judges added.

“It is deeply humiliating, and an affront to human dignity, to deny anyone a assistance simply because of that person’s race, gender, incapacity, sexual orientation or any of the other guarded particular attributes,” Hale said in the judgment.

“But that is not what took place in this circumstance and it does the task of equivalent treatment method no favours to seek to extend it outside of its correct scope.”

Ashers bakery owners Daniel and Amy McArthur outdoors the supreme courtroom following the ruling. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Flexibility of expression, as certain by post 10 of the European convention on human rights, contains the appropriate “not to categorical an impression which a single does not hold”, Hale added. “This courtroom has held that nobody should really be compelled to have or categorical a political impression in which he does not think,” she said.

“The bakers could not refuse to offer their merchandise to Mr Lee simply because he was a gay male or supported gay relationship, but that is pretty distinct from obliging them to offer a cake iced with a message with which they profoundly disagreed.”

The circumstance has aroused international curiosity. The US supreme courtroom reached a equivalent summary in a different bakery circumstance in June, when it ruled in favour of a Colorado baker who had refused to make a marriage ceremony cake for a gay few in 2012.

After the ruling, Lee said: “I’m really puzzled about what this actually means. We need certainty when you go to a enterprise. I’m involved that this has implications for myself and for each individual single particular person.”

The initial determination to transform down his order had left him experience like a “second-course citizen”, he said.

Lee said he would be taking into consideration his solutions, which could involve appealing to the European courtroom of human rights in Strasbourg.

Daniel McArthur, whose household operates Ashers, said outdoors the supreme courtroom: “I want to start out by thanking God. He has been with us for the last four yrs. We are delighted with the ruling. We always knew we had done practically nothing completely wrong in turning down the order. We are really grateful to the judges.

“We did not transform down this order simply because of the particular person who manufactured it, but simply because of the message by itself.”

Michael Wardlow, the head of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, said it had invested £250,000 supporting Lee’s enchantment. It will now have to shell out prices.

He said: “We are really upset. This judgment leaves a lack of clarity in equality law. Our being familiar with of certainty of the law has been overturned. The supreme courtroom appears to see this as one thing that should really be done on a circumstance-by-circumstance foundation.”

The Rainbow Project, Northern Ireland’s greatest assist organisation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people today, expressed its disappointment at the ruling.

Arlene Foster (@DUPleader)

The #Ashers ruling is an historic and seminal judgement. This has been a extensive journey for anyone concerned in the circumstance. I commend Amy & Daniel McArthur for their grace and perseverance. This now presents clarity for people today of all faiths and none. pic.twitter.com/yvY1wVhuJB

October 10, 2018

John O’Doherty, the project’s director, said: “Ashers agreed to make the cake. They entered into a contractual settlement to make this cake and then changed their thoughts.

“We think this is direct discrimination for which there can be no justification. We will, even so, get time to study this judgment by the supreme courtroom to fully grasp totally its implications for the rights of LGBT people today to access merchandise, services and companies without having discrimination.”

A spokesperson for the gay rights organisation Stonewall said: “This is a backward move for equality which demands to be urgently dealt with. The determination that Ashers bakery have been not discriminatory in the so-termed ‘gay cake’ row is really relating to for anyone who cares about equality.”

But the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, said: “This verdict is a victory for freedom of expression. As well as which means that Ashers cannot be lawfully compelled to aid the promotion of similar-intercourse relationship, it also means that gay bakers cannot be compelled by law to adorn cakes with anti-gay relationship slogans.

“Although I profoundly disagree with Ashers’ opposition to relationship equality, in a cost-free modern society neither they nor anyone else should really be compelled to aid a political strategy that they oppose. The ruling does not permit anyone to discriminate versus LGBT people today. This sort of discrimination rightly remains illegal.”

Northern Ireland is the only component of the United kingdom or Ireland exactly where similar-intercourse relationship is outlawed. The Democratic Unionist occasion chief, Arlene Foster, said the judgment was “historic and seminal”.

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